Chapter 224: There Is No Such Thing as a Useless Struggle
"Kushina! Look out!"
Inside the sealed space, the Nine-Tails shouted urgently, trying to warn her.
But it was too late. "Mikoto Uchiha" suddenly struck. Her five fingers, glowing with an ominous purple light, thrust upward with vicious force, slamming directly into Kushina's abdomen.
The blow was so heavy that Kushina was launched high into the air. She crashed back down, rolling through the dust, unable to stand up again.
In the consciousness space, the Nine-Tails watched in horror as its connection with Kushina began to fade.
"Damn it! What is this?! Why did I sense no malice from this person?! My malice sensing cannot be wrong! Damn it! Damn it! DAMN IT!"
The Nine-Tails roared frantically within its cage, but it could do nothing to stop the changes happening inside Kushina's body.
It was helpless. even the space around it slowly turned pitch black.
Kushina spat out a mouthful of blood, lying on the ground in a daze. "This is... the Five Elements Seal... Mikoto... why?"
After the successful ambush, "Mikoto Uchiha" stood perfectly still, looking down coldly at the struggling Kushina. She made no further moves, like a puppet waiting for its next command.
A moment later, a figure walked out from the distance.
"Cunning little brat. You cost this old man a lot of effort!"
Kushina forced her head to turn, only to see the face she hated day and night.
"You... you aren't dead?!!!"
Danzo Shimura no longer looked like the imposing Konoha Elder of the past. To disguise himself, he wore a standard Jonin flak jacket. His spiky hair was wrapped in bandages, which also covered half of his face.
Clearly, Danzo had only just recovered from his injuries.
His voice sounded like a demon crawling out of hell, sending shivers down Kushina's spine. Every night before this, she had woken up from nightmares hearing that voice. She thought she would never have to hear it again in this lifetime.
"How could this old man die so easily? You destroyed my Root, so naturally, I had to come find you."
What Kushina didn't know was that during her escape and Sakumo Hatake's pursuit, due to the massive blunders, Danzo's Root organization had been dismantled. With the Hokage's permission and the other two advisors' execution, Danzo's life's work had been destroyed.
His position as an Elder was gone. His repeated failures meant he was about to face a reckoning from Konoha's high command.
That Tailed Beast Bomb before her escape hadn't killed him. He survived thanks to several Healing Talismans he carried and emergency life-saving measures.
But when he woke up, his power, his status—they were dead.
So he hid. Under the guise of reinforcements, he infiltrated the pursuit team for one final gamble.
Danzo walked up to "Mikoto Uchiha" with a dark expression.
"This jutsu provided by Orochimaru is truly useful. A flawless transformation technique... Allow me to introduce you. I originally planned to turn you into a tool without a mind, just like 'it'. But I was too soft-hearted. I shouldn't have been. If I had wiped your mind a day earlier, none of this trouble would have happened. But this time, I won't make the same mistake. I will wipe your mind immediately. You will become my most powerful weapon, helping me reclaim everything I lost, bit by bit..."
Kushina realized in despair that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't re-establish contact with the Nine-Tails inside her.
And she... couldn't even stand up.
Danzo grabbed a handful of her long red hair and yanked. Kushina cried out in pain.
Pulling her up by her hair, he hissed coldly:
"What you owe me, I will make you pay back ten times over... a hundred times over..."
Kushina knelt on the ground, curled up, clutching her abdomen with both hands.
"Kurama... I'm sorry... It seems I've failed again... I said such cool things earlier, but look at me now... How embarrassing..."
Just then, three streaks of rainbow light flew across the sky. Danzo's pupil constricted.
"The Heavenly Transfer Technique? Those idiots from the Cloud are here to stir up trouble again! Get up! You're coming with me!"
Danzo pulled harder, but Kushina ignored the tearing pain in her scalp. She whispered softly:
"Maybe you can't hear me anymore, Kurama. But I still want to thank you. Thank you for helping me when we were underground... for comforting me in your own way... even though you really suck at comforting people..."
"I SAID GET UP! DID YOU NOT HEAR ME?! DO YOU STILL HAVE HOPE?!"
Kushina pulled a kunai from her pouch. It was the first time she had drawn her own weapon since last night. Throughout the long night, she had relied entirely on the Nine-Tails' power.
She swung the blade weakly. Even an ordinary person could have dodged it. However, the blade wasn't aimed at Danzo—it was aimed at her own hair.
Snip.
Her long red hair was severed at the nape of her neck. Released from his grip, Kushina slumped to the ground.
Danzo stared blankly at the handful of red hair in his hand. Then, he tossed it aside like trash and sneered.
"A useless struggle!"
Kushina stood up, trembling. She dropped the kunai and looked Danzo straight in the eye.
"In this world, there is no such thing as a useless struggle!" she said, enunciating every word. "No matter how small! No matter how weak! It is all earned by people like me, giving everything we have!"
Kushina could barely keep her eyes open. Her vision blurred, and her breathing grew faint.
"My life has been a failure! But at the very end! AT THE VERY END! AT LEAST I WILL SAVE YOU! KURAMA!!!"
With a scream that tore at her throat, countless chakra chains erupted from her back.
In the final moment of her life, she awakened the unique ability of the Uzumaki Clan.
The solid chakra chains danced behind her like swaying fox tails. Using the last ounce of her strength, Kushina controlled the Adamantine Sealing Chains to loop around to her front.
And then, she plunged them into her own abdomen.
"Urgh... AHH!"
The Adamantine Sealing Chains actively destroyed the seal within her body. Then, slowly, painfully, they pulled a mass of red chakra out from within her.
At first, it was just a ball of red energy. But once it left Kushina's body, the red chakra expanded rapidly... In the blink of an eye, it returned to its massive size, nearly a hundred meters tall.
Its colossal form was visible across the entire island.
Newly emerged into the outside world, the Nine-Tails was confused. It had been trapped in darkness just moments ago, unable to hear Kushina's final whispers.
It looked down at the girl collapsing onto the ground.
Kushina's eyes were half-closed. Even though the fox was so huge, she could barely see it anymore.
A Jinchuriki who loses their Tailed Beast must die.
"Huff... huff... Kurama! You're free..."
"Live on... without worries... for me..."
The Nine-Tails' pupils shrank to pinpoints. It realized what had happened.
"Kushina! YOU!!"
"Hehe... I finally... managed to do one thing right."
Kushina smiled, her face blooming like a flower.